The Church Report featured on TBN

I just returned from the National Religious Broadcaster Association convention in Anaheim, CA this morning. While I was there I had the opportunity to meet with Paul Crouch, Jr, from the Trinity Broadcasting Network as well as meet some of the staff of the network. Paul was kind enough to invite me on air for a segment of his show called, Behind the Scenes that he was taping right from the TBN booth at the show.

I excited to share the new about The Church Report as we discusssed the rapid rise of the magazine, the need for a genuine news magazine in the industry as well as the January issue which is drawing acclaim for the 50 Most Influential Christians in America special report.

While I was there I also had the chance to meet Tommy Tenny of the Godchasers network and learn more about his upcoming film. I look forward to working more with Tommy as the premiere of his movie approaches.

I have attached some picture here from show for you as well.

Reader Comments from the February Stem Cell Article

I have received a tremendous number of positive comments regarding the stem cell research article that appeared in the February issue. Thanks to Joni Earekson Tada for lending her time to set the record straight. Unfortunately, there are those whose opinion are different, and those whose expression are so inflamatory, I thought I would share them with you. Here is a sample of the only negative comment I received on the February cover story:
Mr. Jason T. Christy,

I just read your "The Church Report" story on Stem Cell research. It was bad.
Your entire article is full of weak science poorly explained. What is worse is that you make claims and assertions based in science with no footnoting or attribution to determine factuality. For example your grammatically suspect parenthetical comment on page 14 about the reality of stem cells in adults would be easy to footnote. Your assertion on page 16 that "at five days the embryo's genetic code and DNA are the same as the day of birth" at best assumes fertilization at worst shows a profound ignorance of basic human development. Regardless of these two examples the entire tone of the article with regards to science is very misleading and factually wrong in many places.

On top of that your interviewee's assertion that Californian's had been duped was pretty laughable. Actually people in California were pretty clear on the issues (examine any of the Field Polls or for that matter the Gallup polls on the topic) with regards to prop 71 and they overwhelmingly voted for it. That they disagree with your interviewee is not enough to label 30 million of us as "duped." What she or you should have done is outline the issues and her specific positions on the issues.

Finally I am frustrated by your article because it is a total failure in terms of opening up the discussion of stem cell research on moral and ethic grounds. You do not serve any of us (those who agree or disagree) well by doing bad writing on this important topic. Your use of this woman to make a particular point with little or no regard for either science or ethics was a mistake. There are critically important issues at stake here and your shoddy article did nothing to advance your position.

Please post your thoughts here, or give Mark a call and see what he is trying to say.
It would be my hope that you would do a far better job of addressing this issue than you have so far.

Shalom,

Mark

Mark C. Cordes
Associate Pastor
Fairfield Community UMC
1875 Fairfield Ave.
Fairfield, CA 94533
707-426-2944